this is josh g

As I move more and more out of the realm of various intoxicants (and into the realm of various antioxidants) I find the I have more respect for art that is able to transport me to that same, mind-blowing realm while I’m stone-cold sober. I tried to do it with the PhD mix and I feel like I was able to get pretty close. As much as I am a fan of the idea of "Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To", these days it seems more badass to me if you can conjure up that feeling while straight-minded. In the daytime. Drinking water.

This song by "Milkshake" by Holy Fuck is doing a great job at that. Jack gave me the album when we visited NC in May and I’ve been giving it a thorough listen. This track sort of takes over my mind by force in the beginning, only to relax its grip once the vibes kick in. It’s fantastic.

(Holy Fuck – Milkshake)

In the same vein, I recently revisited the animated film "American Pop" by Ralph Bakshi. Bakshi gets (sort of) a bum rap in the world of animation, I guess mainly because his stories are pretty thin, his animation takes cheap short-cuts, and I’ve heard he’s kind of a jerk. (Plus he made "Fritz the Cat", which I haven’t seen but is notable for being the first X-rated animated film…) He also made the first "Lord of the Rings" film back in the 80’s. It’s not very good.

Be that as it may, when I first saw American Pop — a rotoscoped low-fi animation sort of history of popular American music — I was appropriately under the influence and was totally blown away. The rotoscoping looked amazing, the songs that appeared were unexpected and awesome ("People Are Strange", "I’m Waiting For My Man"?! "Pretty Vacant"?!), and the pizza I was eating was delicious.

Upon re-viewing, however, it didn’t hold up so well. The story was kind of a joke, the animation is still pretty neat, but the parts where he cheaped out are more obvious. The songs are still good, but when the story is that meaningless the songs are kind of beside the point. The look of it is pretty cool though, and it’s rotoscoping way before Linklater thought up A Scanner Darkly or Waking Life…

When I first saw it, the film’s final scene totally blew me away. I was so caught up in the psychedelic majesty of it all. Now? Well, parts of it still hold up, but wow the very end is kind of embarrassing…I do love the bit early on where he’s handing out the music and he says "Pass ’em out, turkey!" People should still call each other "turkey", it’s such an endearing put-down…

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It’s been a long time since I listened to one track on repeat over and over and over again. I think the first time was in college, pulling an all-nighter to finish a report for a speech I had to give in History 102, taking Vivarin (first and last time) and listening to David Bowie’s "Heroes" (the full version) over and over and over and over and over. What a night. Needless to say, my speech was really really weird.

All the speeches given up to that point had been really dry, and since the grade was half from the professor, and half from student evaluations, I figured I should make my speech kind of funny, you know? So I wrote in all these "jokes". Let me be the first to tell you that jokes written in the middle of an all-nighter on Vivarin are not going to be funny. At best they will be odd. So I gave my speech, red-eyed and fried, and babbling incoherently about how the German soldiers of World War One wore funny hats. I can remember thinking it was strange that no-one was laughing at the funny bits. My friend PatH who was in the class later told me that it wasn’t making any sense.

Sure enough, when I had slept and re-read my speech, it was a mess.

Lately, I’ve been listening to "The Low Murderer is Out at Night" on repeat 1 and it’s been great. The song is kind of a mini-suite, going through several movements, each of which adds on the previous one.

Initially it’s a bit like Air, with an acoustic guitar groove and bubbling electronics. Around 2 minutes in, a distorted guitar and funkier beat get added. At the 3 minute mark a sweet Floyd-esque solo comes sweeping in and I feel the presence of JWilmeth is hanging out with me. So good. I once read this description of a track by Country Joe and the Fish and it said something like "at the 2 minute mark, suddenly the walls begin to melt." That’s how it feels, the wall begin to melt. Then the vocal sample, and the dirrrty synth at 5:15 and we’re in it deep, you know?

Loving it.

(Low Motion Disco – The Low Murderer Is Out At Night)

[audio:Low_Motion.mp3]

[via]

I think this is the best mix I’ve done. Started in October, this is officially 2007’s mix, but you can dig it in 2008! It leans heavily on mashups and hiphop, because that’s where I think the most interesting and innovative music is happening these days…

Enjoy! Lemme know whatcha think…

(right-click or ctrl-click to download zip file of audio mp3s and cover art jpg)

Psychedelic Hiphop Dubplate

UPDATE – it has been suggested that I should point out that I made a lot of the mashups myself…enjoy!

Hi, no posts for a while I’m afraid as Maxine and I have road-tripped ourselves to the South! We had a lovely stay with my ole pal Jack, his expectant wife Kara and amazing dog Morton (who we miss terribly!) in Durham, NC, and we have now forged on like Sherman to Savannah, GA. Also like Sherman, we have spared Savannah from our path of destruction and are loving how great it is here. It feels surreal and serene, like living in a storybook of some sort…

Posting should resume next week, but in the meantime, here’s a track from Jack’s former band, The Diplomats, that he recorded a while back with Mitch Easter(!) — producer of the first two REM albums! It sounds pretty great…

(The Diplomats – Chris Bell)

[audio:Chris_Bell.mp3]

Also, here’s a picture of a hook-rug of a cat holding a pumpkin that we saw at a market in Raleigh, NC. Both cat and pumpkin are nervous for some reason.

Awesome.

See you next week!

"possibly the best rap about a cup of tea EVER"…

Cup of Brown Joy by MC Elemental (via Warren Ellis)…

living with a certified tea addict, this all makes a lot of sense to me…also it’s genius…and put together so well…

very rare to see successful british-comedy-hiphop…

It is May. Let us celebrate in two different ways.

First let us celebrate in the Scottish fashion.

(Belle and Sebastian – Mayfly)

[audio:Mayfly.mp3]

Then we shall celebrate in the Celtic-y Pagan-y fashion.

Makes me want to watch The Wicker Man all over again.

I love that Wikipedia describes it

"combining thriller, existential horror and musical genres."

That’s got me written all over it.

(pic of mixwit.com, the new mixtape site with a great cassette-style interface) 

Since I started the blog in February 08 I’ve been thinking a lot about this stuff. I wasn’t really sure what joshgranger.com was going to be when I bought the domain. Then while getting ready to start the blog proper, wordpress (whose software powers this site) had a little exercise before you start blogging where you write down what you plan to do, who the audience is, how often you’ll blog, etc., in an effort to make sure you know what you’re getting into.

My little written bit basically amounted to sharing anything I found online that I thought was cool — music, video, linkage — much like my favorite blogs. I’ve come to think of it as an extension of the mixtape, which is an artform I’ve loved since I was taping off the radio in 1982. In college my mixtaping reached a alltime high level: I was using the media lab to tape things off of VHS videocassettes; I had inherited my dad’s old cassette player that could control the level in (yes! no more loud to soft transitions); I was part of a group of fellow mixtapologists who took it very seriously (report cards were made for each mix, a fanzine was published (I show up on page 13)); I was able to scour the college radio station for b-sides and weird rarities, or record myself doing "long-distance dedications"; ETC.

Post college, I was lucky enough to have a father who loved cutting-edge tech, so I could offer people CD mixes when it was still a novelty. When I decided to try DJ’ing, I did a lot of research before deciding to go with CD decks (more flexibility, don’t have to buy records all the damn time). I could run the decks into my computer and record the mixes, then split them into tracks with other software.

Part of the joy of the mix (both making and receiving) was getting/hearing something that made you say "where did THAT come from?!" And of course, the mixtape merely offered you the track name. There wasn’t really any context, so a really obscure track (I remember putting a Crooked Fingers track on a tape for Dan R before Eric B had even become Crooked Fingers…coup!!) could have an air of mystery about it that really added to the fun, and prompted attempts at one-upmanship.

The same is true of forwarding links to your friends — you just send the youtube link, not usually where you got it from. And this keeps that sense of mystery, that great feeling of "where did they find THAT?!"

my gosh, so interesting! tell me more!

A number of points:

1. Does this video bring the dopeness or the freshness? Discuss.

2. On my good days I’m pretty sure I could make something like this. I really could.

3. Do you think these are made up from other vids downloaded from youtube or from hi-rez sources? If you use youtube vids and then re-compress them for youtube, do they look like crap? Is youtube’s new mp4-ness affecting this?

4. Culled from Warren Ellis’s blog. His description: "http://www.eclecticmethod.net. Video mixtapes, video remixes, live video DJ shows and other peculiar experiments that involve beats, images and science." The site is indeed full of great stuff.

 At least I think that’s what they’re saying. Once again, culled from Analog Giant who says:

New single from the Brooklyn based R&B group Escort. Muppets, soul, R&B, the Rapture and remix all in one place is a guarenteed joy for me.

I have to agree, especially re Muppets, who seem to show up here on the jjosh a lot. Watching this vid last night Maxine and I were remarking that the Muppets still look so original and fresh. And great.

I love the future-guy rocking the space keyboard.

Is it Spring where you are?

Yesterday was just stunning here (until early evening) so I threw together a quick Spring mix to listen to as I walked around in the sunny sun sunshine. Then I figured I’d give it to you! Keep in mind, it’s pretty random. The criteria for songs was two:

1. it should remind me of Spring

or

2. it should be something I wanted to hear

(right-click to download, then unzip)

Sunny Sun Sunshine Spring Mix

Other than that I was just scrolling through my itunes, alphabetically by band, starting at Z. Some odd choices, but overall it was a great soundtrack for my day. Enjoy.

click here to find out more about the tracks on the mix!

What’s interesting is that while there are tons of mashups using Beatles vocals, and tons using Doors vocals, there don’t seem to be that many using Rolling Stones vocals. I think this might be because the Doors and Beatles ones come from re-mastering into 5.1 sound that isolates the vocals, and then savvy remixers can grab the vocal track. Maybe the Rolling Stones haven’t been re-mastered into 5.1?

Anyway, since it happens very rarely, it’s always fun to come across one. I’m guessing that this Soulwax remix of You Can’t Always Get What You Want is officially sanctioned and timed to market the Scorsese Stones film (why Marty, why???). Soulwax make great remixes, and while it’s not quite as transforming as I’d like, it’s still pretty great.

Rolling Stones – You Can’t Always Get What You Want (Soulwax remix)

Banzai Republic vs. Beatles – Blackbird (remix)

Go Home Productions – Rapture Riders (Blondie vs. Doors)

Panda Bear of Animal Collective released a solo album last year that hit the top ten in many many critics’ best of 2007 lists. And the album is kind of great…all Beach Boys gone psychedelic freak-out but still sunshine-y. I especially love the first track, Comfy In Nautica…it’s like a weird gentle industrial-style rhythm with a Brian Wilson sunshine vocal, I love it…

Panda Bear – Comfy In Nautica

I saw Animal Collective in a tiny DC venue, The Warehouse Next Door…I only went to the show because an old high school friend of mine was in the opening band, Antelope (they’re on Dischord, neat-o). Antelope and Animal Collective — nice, right? Anyway, Antelope were pretty good, but Animal Collective blew the lid off, all yelping and mask-wearing. In the middle of their set my high school pal leans over and says "Pretty fresh, huh?" and it had been ages since I’d heard "fresh" used. Since then I’ve been using it liberally.

Fresh is a great word for this remix of Comfy In Nautica that I came across over at the fantastic blog Analog Giant. The Giant posts liberally, and even the tracks I’m not that into are still interesting. This remix is done by XXXchange of Spank Rock. I’m sure he pronounces his name "triple x change," but I like to imagine him pronouncing it "ex ex ex change." I don’t know much about Spank Rock, except for the Baltimore guys make good! angle. I’ve hung out with some people who went to school with the MC, Naeem, and say that he used to be this total geek, and how amazing it is that now he’s this feted MC.

Anyway, XXXchange’s remix shoots an already great song into the stratosphere…I’m listening to it on repeat!

Panda Bear – Comfy In Nautica (xxxchange remix)

(If you care, you can stream an Antelope track at Dischord’s download page here.)

Welllll well well.

Last night Chris B and I went to Terminal 5 to see Boredoms (apparently not "the Boredoms", just "Boredoms").

You may not know Boredoms, but perhaps you know that one of their dummers, Yoshimi, is the Yoshimi from the Flaming Lips record "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots."

I tried to see them last July when they did their storied 77 drummers playing for 77 minutes on 7/7/07 at Brooklyn Bridge park (link to youtube clip), but the line was absolutely insane, literally the biggest line I’ve ever been in for anything in my life. If we’re ever walking around in Dumbo I’ll show you, it was crazy, it stretched literally for blocks!!…

So when I saw that they were going to be playing in NYC I snapped up a ticket. It was advertised that they’d be playing "in the round" and that sounded kind of great too. Chris got a ticket as well and we headed out last Sunday night.

It was one of the most amazing concert experiences I have ever had.

Top 5 easily.

Before we go any further, let’s get a sense of what exactly Boredoms sound like. Because saying "japanese noise band" doesn’t really do them justice. Here is a track off their masterpiece Vision Creation Newsun…the tracks on that album don’t have any names, just symbols, so this track’s name is actually a little heart symbol…try to make it at least 11 seconds in so you can get a sense of the drums kicking in…

Boredoms – (heart)

I know, I know, not music I would necessarily recommend to everyone. But last night it was mindblowing.

A little more context first, let’s have a look at my other top 5 mindbuggling concert moments: 

Other events in my top 5:

yes! tell me more!

more pop? well o.k. sure, maybe it’s a little bubblegummy, but this stuff from Robyn is so fun…I know the blog-o-world has been geeking out over Robyn for a while, but I only saw the video for Konichiwa Bitches a month or so ago, and it blew me away with its weird acid-fried scandanavian pop hip hop energy…

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and then I caught this video today for With Every Heartbeat while searching for music to use in a mainstream-advertisers type video piece…she’s like some weird version of madonna from an alternate universe!

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I was worried that the dolphin stuff below was a little too cute, so thank the internet gods I’ve been rescued by a truly brutal Ernie and Bert music video.

The song is called “A Divine Proclamation for Finishing the Present Existence” and it’s performed by the band Last Days of Humanity. I love how Ernie & Bert still retain their central muppet-ness despite the shift in tone…and the ending is great. Crank it up!